Filmmaker of the Day: Bill Gentile

Our Filmmaker of the Day is Bill Gentile, an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker. His career spans four decades, five continents and nearly every facet of journalism and mass communication, most especially visual communication, or visual storytelling.

Bill is the winner of two national Emmy Awards and was nominated for two others. He is a pioneer of ‘backpack video journalism’. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Essential Video Journalism Field Manual, and its Spanish-language version, Manual Esencial de Produccion Video Periodismo. He teaches the first-ever Spanish-language class at AU’s School of Communication (SOC), Backpack Documentary en Español.

Bill engineered the SOC’s 2015 partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and is the driving force behind that initiative. He is the director, executive producer and host of the upcoming documentary series, Freelancers with Bill Gentile.

Bill Gentile has previously worked on Fire and Ice on the Mountain, When the Forest Weeps, The Gangs, The Researcher, The Pastor, Afghanistan: The Forgotten War, and Nurses Needed. He helped found, and is the faculty advisor of the AU chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) the organization’s first student chapter in the nation’s capital.

Bill has been featured in a variety of publications. Daily Beast commented the following on Bill’s work: “Bill Gentile has done a brave thing. After decades as a war photographer and more recently teaching and mentoring young journalists, he decided it was time to try to explain the world to people in the United States by telling the stories of journalists on the front lines bringing home the news.”

Overall, Bill’s impact on journalism will be long-lasting and has changed the way filmmakers and journalists work. You can catch Bill on his website, Twitter, and Instagram for updates on future projects.